Journal of Biomedical Optics
• Open Access

Most colorectal cancers arise from dysplastic lesions, such as adenomatous polyps, and these lesions are difficult to be detected by the current endoscopic screening approaches. Here, we present the use of an intrinsic second-harmonic generation (SHG) signal as a novel means to differentiate between normal and dysplastic human colonic tissues. We find that the SHG signal can quantitatively identify collagen change associated with colonic dysplasia that is indiscernible by conventional pathologic techniques. By comparing normal with dysplastic mucosa, there were significant differences in collagen density and collagen fiber direction, providing substantial potential to become quantitative intrinsic biomarkers for in vivo clinical diagnosis of colonic dysplasia.